Cuar. XI.] BEST SITUATIONS FOR TEA FARMS. 201 
loam, very different from the sample which will 
be found noticed in the chapter on climate and 
soil. Tea shrubs will not succeed well unless they 
have arich soil to grow in. The continual gather- 
ing of their leaves is very detrimental to their 
health, and, in fact, ultimately kills them. Hence 
a principal object with the grower is to keep his 
bushes in as robust health as possible; and this 
cannot be done if the soil be poor. 
The tea plantations in the north of China are 
always situated on the lower and most fertile sides 
of the hills, and never on the low lands. The 
shrubs are planted in rows about four feet apart 
and about the same distance between each row, 
and look, at a distance, like little shrubberies of 
evergreens. 
The farms are small, each consisting of from one 
to four or five acres; indeed, every cottager has his 
own little tea garden, the produce of which supplies 
the wants of his family, and the surplus brings him 
in a few dollars, which are spent on the other ne- 
cessaries of life. The same system is practised in 
every thing relating to Chinese agriculture. The 
cotton, silk, and rice farms are generally all small 
and managed upon the same plan. There are few 
sights more pleasing than a Chinese family in the 
interior engaged in gathering the tea leaves, or, 
indeed, in any of their other agricultural pursuits. 
There is the old man, it may be the grandfather, or 
even the great-grandfather, patriarch like, direct- 
ing his descendants, many of whom are in their 
